“What I can tell you is that I would anticipate that the administration is going to initiate a full evaluation of voting rolls in the country, the overall integrity of our voting system in the wake of this past election,” Pence told Republican lawmakers during a question-and-answer session at their annual policy retreat in Philadelphia this week.

The vice president’s comments, captured in a recording obtained by The Post, give the clearest picture yet of how the Trump administration intends to investigate whether 3 million to 5 million people voted illegally in the 2016 election, an unsupported claim President Trump has made.

In the recording, Pence invoked a Pew Research study that Trump has falsely claimed shows widespread voter fraud.

“Just because so many Americans share the concern that you have, I have, the president certainly has about people being registered in multiple states,” Pence added. “You can anticipate that we will be looking for ways to work with you, to simply dig into it, to follow the facts, to see where the facts go. That one-person, one-vote principle is at the very heart of this republic and our democratic institutions, and it must be defended.”

Recordings of closed sessions at the Republican policy retreat here were sent late Thursday to The Washington Post and several other news outlets from an anonymous email address. Details of the Pence session were first reported by the Guardian newspaper.

Aides to House GOP leaders declined to comment on the recordings or their authenticity, but the contents match descriptions of the meetings gathered by Post reporters. The lawmakers were introduced by name before they spoke, and The Post spoke with other people in the room who confirmed speakers’ identities.

Pence spokesman Marc Lotter neither confirmed nor denied the accuracy of the quotes when reached Friday. “We’re not going to comment on private conversations with members of Congress,” he said.

Pence was responding to a question from Alabama Rep. Mo Brooks (R), who complained about his …